Crash.Net User: Southerner

I'm with Codger on this one. Rossi is the last Ducati standing right now with intent and physical integrity at his disposal.
The highsides highlight an Indy angle. Honda...PLONK.
Yamaha...PLONK. Ducati...PLONK. 3 out of 3 works riders on 3 different prototypes taken out through no fault of their's.
Indy would do well as a venue for off season testing.
Did you all enjoy Moto 2 ?
Marquez is the real deal. Pol Espargaro. Another real deal. Ducati need to get Pol signed up quick for the junior team. Am I the only one who thinks Spain owns MotoGP across all classes? Rock on Sandro Cortese.
Give me a reason to believe.

Definitely not the qualifying session one would have hoped for,given the highsides and possible non entries.
Nevertheless,that is all part and parcel of the game.
Lorenzo at Philip Island last year,remember anyone?
I hope Casey and Nick are up for the grid. If not its no train smash. The George/Dani battle will be enthralling and I am once again very impressed with Stefan. Dovi deserves all the best. Ben is one of the walking wounded yet again,but bloody fast. All the best to all the riders entries tomorrow.
Unfortunately Indy acts more like a conveyor belt obstacle course by lap than a GP circuit.
Of course I have to mention Rossi. He was damn close to victim no.4. He backed right out of it with good reason and I don't blame him a jot.

Love him or hate him GP will be the poorer with his abscence next year.
Irreverent,politically incorrect he may be,but ask him a straight question and you will get a straight answer.
I guess you will be able to cut the Indy pre race conference atmosphere with a knife.
Graveller he's been, groveller to Dorna and the GPC in general...NEVER.

The Junior team announcement is perhaps stalled due to Petrucci. He is a great potential and already blooded at the top level albeit CRT and the slowest piece of junk amongst the slow.
Back to topic and Dovi.
The naysayers and prophets of doom need to wake up.
Dovi adapted extremely well from 2 stroke to V4 800 to transverse 4 1000. Why not L4 1000 ? Oh ! Melandri and Rossi. Well, he ain't them. He's bloody good though, even if a yard slower than the 3 aliens of recent memory.
I hope it works for him and Ducati.
Livery anyone ? Marlboro bargraph and glorious all red is my pick.
Vestiges of McDonalds confined to the trash can 4ever.

I see it as a win win situation for both Rossi and Ducati. Rossi can get back to riding in a way and on a bike that suits him. Ducati can get back to building race bikes the way they know how.
The past 18 months without Stoner has highlighted the fact that the Ducati is not a match for the M1 or RCV, but the records from 2003 onwards showed them to be better than Suz and Kawa prior to their withdrawal.
Piggy in the middle of a Japanese sandwich.
With Audi's manufacturing and engineering facilities
available, Ducati's race engineers should be able to implement modifications far quicker than in the past.
PS. Stoner won't be back. The best one could hope for is a wild card or substitute ride on a Honda.

Back to Yamaha,pretty please ! Either way he's not going to be a threat to Lorenzo,but he may be able to glean a podium or three over a seasons length on the transverse 4 provided the L4 has not corrupted his riding style completely.

Speaking of dogs,pedigree usually gets the vote and Rossi has it by the bucket load. This is the sad state of affairs Dovi is faced with along with a host of other young talent. If it were a black and white world Yamaha Factory would have signed Dovi immediately after Ben's announcement.
Within 4 months of GP 2012, Dovi has certainly earned that seat alongside George.

Whether he retains the crown or not is irrelevant to him at this stage.He will mark down Laguna 2012 as one of his fondest memories for sure. He was pretty confident all weekend. The lefty track causing less chatter. It was still a tough job beating George and Dani though,especially balancing the tire gamble against the track temperature.
The irony. Stoner's last duel at Laguna ends with Rossi in the gravel at the corkscrew on the Rossi Ducati. Sure it wasn't a duel with Rossi but they did line up on the same grid.
2007,2011 and 2012. A Laguna triple. Nice.

Over the years the LCR Honda has always been a stage lower tune than the Gresini bike. Bradl's performance has been a revelation this year.
Just maybe Cechinello can get somthing close to Repsol spec for Stef next year when Marc moves up.
Honda Germany need to get involved I think.
A bit of political clout from the Eurozone economic giant would be in order.

Class act and class racing delivered by two classy world champions.Thoroughly enjoyable.
George praises Casey and likewise Casey praises him and Dani when the question is popped to him. Stoner has never been the most forthcomming and spontaneous interviewee when it comes to bigging up his opposition. He comes across in another way. For example saying that his Sachsenring failure levels thing with George's bad luck in Assen and Mugello was a failure he regrets.
Now if a journo pointedly asked him what he thought of George's Mugello performance you can be sure he'd heap praise on him. Since he wasn't asked he wouldn't comment. Thats Stoner.
Huge respect between gthem and it shows at every race that they share a podium. Ditto Dani since the King of Spain made them shake hands back then. Was it Jerez some years back?

Although the administrators and moderators of this website will attempt to keep
all objectionable comments off these pages, it is impossible for us to review all
messages. All messages express the views of the poster, and neither Crash Media
Group nor Crash.Net will be held responsible for the content of any message. We
do not vouch for or warrant the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any message,
and are not responsible for the contents of any message. If you find a message objectionable,
please contact us and inform us of the problem or use the [report] function next
to the offending post. Any message that does not conform with the policy of this
service can be edited or removed with immediate effect.